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At their core, smartwatches are extensions of your phone for checking notifications, making calls, sending texts, and, not to mention, telling the time. The best smartwatches can also be powerful tools for tracking activities and monitoring health markers, too. The most important things to consider when choosing a new smartwatch are the features you'll use most and the smartphone operating system you use.

Our top pick among the best smartwatches is the Apple Watch Series 9. Although it's only compatible with iOS, it's easy to navigate and offers a wide range of health and fitness tracking tools. For Android users, we recommend the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. It has a durable, rugged design and multi-day battery life.

The Nothing CMF Watch Pro is a solid budget option. No smartwatch is perfect for a sub-$75 price, but the CMF Watch Pro offers the basics of a smartwatch with a couple of premium features, like an always-on display. It's also compatible with both iOS and Android phones. 

Top picks for the best smartwatches

Best overall: Apple Watch Series 9 – See at Amazon

Best budget: Nothing CMF Watch Pro – See at Amazon

Best for Android: Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro – See at Amazon

Best for Pixel users: Google Pixel Watch 2 – See at Amazon

Best for fitness: Garmin Epix Pro – See at Amazon

Best premium Apple Watch: Apple Watch Ultra 2 – See at Amazon

Best Fitbit: Fitbit Sense 2 – See at Amazon

Best with bezel: Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic – See at Amazon

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Best overall

The Apple Watch Series 9 remains atop the smartwatch pack thanks to its excellent blend of health and fitness tools, smartwatch functionality, and overall effectiveness. For iOS users, there's no better wearable to buy, and it's so good that it may even sway those who don't have an iOS device to get one.

When the Series 9 was released in September 2023, it didn't represent a massive generational leap over the prior year's release, the Apple Watch Series 8. However, it did introduce a few new features that improved its accessibility, and it also debuted a fast new processor chip. 

The new additions include faster on-device Siri access, updated Smart Stack functionality, a brighter display, and, perhaps the most notable new feature, the Double Tap Gesture. The Double Tap Gesture allows users to tap their index finger and thumb together twice to interact with the primary button of any app. For instance, it can answer or hang up a phone call, start or stop a timer, and snooze an alarm. 

While this new gesture is great for interacting with the Apple Watch when you have your hands full, it's a huge advancement in its accessibility. Now, users who may be unable to use the touchscreen easily can still use the watch's apps. This, coupled with the Series 9's on-device Siri access, completely changes how the watch can be used. 

Beyond those updates, the Series 9 is still a powerful health and fitness tracker, offering several tools like sleep tracking and stress management. There are also new mental health tools available within its Mindfulness app that allow users to log how they feel at certain times throughout the day. Apple dropped the blood-oxygen monitoring feature on all Apple Watches, including the Series 9, due to a patent dispute. 

The Apple Watch has long been a quality wearable, and the Series 9 continues that trend, offering something for every type of user. It delivers a premium smartwatch experience, has powerful health and fitness tracking tools, and is not only the best Apple Watch you can buy but the best smartwatch, too.

Read our full Apple Watch Series 9 review.

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Best budget

For around $65, the Nothing CMF Watch Pro perfectly fits the bill for a budget smartwatch, and it works both for Android and iPhone, too. 

Full disclosure: We haven't tested or personally used the CMF Watch Pro yet. However, based on our research, overall experience with smartwatches, and our experience with Nothing products like the Phone 2 and Ear Stick earbuds, we feel comfortable recommending the CMF Watch Pro as a genuinely suitable option for those seeking a budget smartwatch. 

The CMF Watch Pro focuses on the core basics of a smartwatch, including telling the time and showing your notifications. You can even take a call on it thanks to its built-in microphone, which is a pleasant surprise for a watch in this price range, at least one with a recognizable brand name behind it.

It also covers the basic health and fitness tracking features that most smartwatches have, like a step counter, heart rate sensor, and sleep tracking. Also surprisingly, the CMF Watch Pro supports blood-oxygen monitoring — a feature deactivated on Apple Watches thanks to a patent dispute. It also has IP68 water resistance, which means it won't get damaged with water contact, but Nothing doesn't suggest you wear it swimming. 

The CMF Watch Pro's touted 13-day battery life is also worthy of note. We expect most people would get less than 13 days with their typical usage, but that potential range is a great plus for the CMF Watch Pro. The CMF Watch Pro also supports an always-on display, a feature Apple's Watch SE can't tout at its $249 starting price. 

For $65, the CMF Watch Pro doesn't have certain features you'd expect on more expensive smartwatches. It doesn't run third-party apps, for example; that means different things to people who need third-party apps, but for most people, it means you can't run your music streaming app and store music on the CMF Watch Pro for phone-less workouts.

And while you can get notifications about text messages, the CMF Watch Pro doesn't support writing and sending texts from the watch itself. We also saw reports from users who weren't receiving notifications for RCS messages from their phones, which is the modern standard that Android phones use for text messaging. Bluetooth connectivity with your phone is also reportedly patchy and oddly reliant on occasionally running the CMF Watch app. 

So, the CMF Watch Pro isn't perfect, but it's also around $65. Consider that most good smartwatches cost over $200, downsides to the CMF Pro are fully expected, and these specific downsides are acceptable for the price.

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Best for Android

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro is a generation older than the current Galaxy Watch 6 series but has some notable advantages.

Namely, it houses a larger battery that allows it to go several days before a charge. It also has a ruggedly durable and lightweight titanium design that caters to the active user. And, when paired with one of the best Samsung Galaxy Watch bands, you can easily tailor it to function however you prefer to wear it. 

It's also a powerful smartwatch. Call, text, email, and app alerts are easy to interact with on the large, bright watch face, and it uses the latest iteration of Wear OS, which is fluid and intuitive to navigate. It allows for deep customization, too, including several different watch faces that can display certain relevant information. I found this one of its best features, as I could tailor what data or fitness stats it always showed on the home screen. 

Health-focused users will also appreciate its variety of wellness features, including in-depth sleep tracking and a unique body composition scanner that can inform you of your body fat percentage, water weight, and BMI. This isn't as accurate as a reading you may get at the doctor, but it's still a handy tool.

For the fitness crowd, the Watch 5 Pro is stellar. Not only is there a wide range of trackable workouts, like cycling, running, and weight lifting, but there are plenty of activities that aren't specifically fitness-centric but still work out your body, like skiing and hiking. There's also a handy track-back option that functions like a breadcrumb feature to track your exact hiking routes. However, this only works for hiking and cycling, but hopefully, future updates make it available for things like trail running, too.

The Watch 5 Pro isn't without its drawbacks. Some features, like the ECG function that tracks heart rhythms and blood pressure monitor, are exclusive to Samsung phones via the Samsung Health Monitor app, and they're not available on other Android phones. It's not a major red flag, but it is something to keep in mind if you don't own a Samsung phone. 

Even with those issues, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro is the best Android smartwatch you can buy. It's a quality health and fitness tracker and an exceptional smartwatch. For Android users, especially those who own Samsung phones, it doesn't get better than this.   

Read our full Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro review.

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Best for Pixel users

Google's second iteration of the Pixel Watch, the Pixel Watch 2, addresses our main complaints from the previous model, and it easily deserves its spot as the best option for Pixel phone users. 

The Pixel Watch 2 continues to offer the stellar core smartwatch experience from the original Pixel Watch with the intuitive WatchOS 4 operating system, compatibility with several third-party apps, and excellent notifications and interactions with calls, texts, and emails. As an extension of your phone, it shines. 

For fitness tracking, namely GPS accuracy, the Pixel Watch 2 brings major improvements, and it's actually up to par with other smartwatches now. It includes features like sleep tracking, all-day heart rate monitoring, stress monitoring, and ECG readings. The Pixel Watch 2 also comes with a new skin temperature sensor and a new heart rate sensor, contributing to unique insights into sleep quality. 

We should note that some features like advanced sleep data, advanced stress management tools, and Fitbit's unique Daily Readiness feature are locked behind Fitbit's $10/month Premium subscription service. You get a free six-month trial of the service when you buy the Pixel Watch 2, which lets you decide whether it's worth keeping.  

The Pixel Watch 2 also shows notable improvements in battery life over the original. It gets us through a full day that includes activity and workout tracking while leaving enough battery for sleep tracking.

Read our full Google Pixel Watch 2 review.

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Best for fitness

There aren't many things the Garmin Epix Pro can't do. From its endless number of trackable activities and weeklong battery to its accurate GPS tracking, no-frills but useful notification system, and a suite of health-tracking features, it's more than just a quality fitness tracker; it's the best fitness tracker. Period.

But since we're talking about smartwatches, it's worth pointing out it excels at that, too. Its call, text, and app notifications are on the basic end of the smartwatch spectrum, but they're still easy to interact with, and the watch still serves as a reliable extension of your smartphone. It may not have all the bells and whistles of something like the Series 9 or Watch 5 Pro, but it gets the job done. 

Plus, the amount of extras that come with it makes it an especially great pick for fitness-focused folks or anyone who enjoys spending time outside. It offers in-depth activity tracking for things like running, cycling, weight training, and snowboarding and does more than just track heart rate and time. It can log actual workout reps and track actual ground you cover via GPS while providing a detailed map of your route. 

It's also a comprehensive health tracker with in-depth sleep and stress monitoring and a handy recovery tool that adjusts how much rest it recommends you need based on your daily activity. 

I found the recovery feature quite useful, especially when I wanted to push myself but decided to take it easy based on the watch's recommendation, knowing I wouldn't be at my best. This input ultimately changed how I worked out each week, and I started to feel far better on a week-to-week basis in terms of soreness and my overall recovery timeline. 

This only scratches the surface of what the Epix Pro can do, too, as the watch literally learns your day-to-day behavior and adapts to suit you best. This includes the workout recommendations, but it also helps manage stress levels, when to go to bed and wake up, and how often you should have a rigorous workout. 

The fact it does all this while also being a reliable smartwatch makes it one of the premier wearables you can buy.

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Best premium Apple Watch

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 offers a near-similar smartwatch experience to the Series 9 but at a much steeper price tag. While it may not be the preferred choice for casual users, it's worth the extra investment for advanced athletes or those who spend time outdoors.

This is mainly due to the features and internal hardware tailored to tracking activities like cycling, diving, and climbing. These features include a brighter screen that can be more easily seen in high-lighting conditions, tracking compatibility for freediving, scuba diving, and wakeboarding, and improved altitude readings.

The Ultra 2 also features a bulkier, more durable design than the Series 9 and a battery that lasts upwards of two full days instead of needing to be recharged daily. The increased battery life is a huge improvement compared to the Series 9 (and other smartwatches in this guide) since less time on the charger means more time using it for how it's intended.

However, my favorite feature of the Ultra 2 is its Action Button, which can be programmed to open several different apps, including the fitness-tracking app, the stopwatch, or the shortcuts app. The Action Button is especially helpful for activities because instead of starting after a short three-second countdown, like on the Series 9, it allows you to press the button once you're situated and ready to go. This also helps wait for the GPS to sync.

Other notable features include the new Double Tap Gesture, which also debuted on the Series 9, and faster on-device Siri access. It also has the new S9 processor chip and the updated ultra-wideband chip that improves its location accuracy.

Although the Ultra 2 offers many features geared toward the advanced athlete, it's still a quality wearable for the casual user. It has the same health and fitness tracking tools as the Series 9 while offering similar smartwatch functionality.

Note that Apple disabled the blood-oxygen monitoring feature on all Apple Watches, including the Ultra 2, due to a patent dispute.

Read our full Apple Watch Ultra 2 review.

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Best Fitbit

For a smartwatch that excels as a reliable sleep tracker, Fitbit's Sense 2 is at the front of the pack. It not only tracks your sleep each night and provides in-depth data, but it also offers unique recommendations on improving your rest via several metrics. Plenty of wearables try to provide this level of insight, but the Sense 2 does it best.

What sets the Sense 2 apart is how comprehensive the data it provides is. For example, after a night of sleep, the Fitbit app displays metrics showing how well I rested. These include time spent in REM, deep, and light sleep, as well as other factors like time spent awake, how restless I might have been, and what my heart rate was. 

The Fitbit app can then recommend ways to improve my sleep to better my nightly score. This may include certain workouts, when to work out, or how to keep a consistent sleep schedule. Once I got the hang of using the recommendations, they made a noticeable difference.

It's worth noting that one major hurdle to having all the sleep data available is to have Fitbit Premium, the subscription part of the Fitbit app. Memberships run for $10/month or $80/year and are worth the expenditure for those intent on using the extra data. 

Fitbit Premium also provides a unique Daily Readiness Score that analyzes your prior day's activity and rest and creates a numbered score to represent how hard to push yourself. There are also in-depth health insights, like heart rate variability, available to subscribers. 

Aside from its capability as a sleep tracker, the Sense 2 is also an excellent fitness tracker. It tracks various activities like running, cycling, and strength training. Also, it uses a skin temperature sensor, has heart rhythm (ECG) readings, and debuted Fitbit's real-time stress tracker. The stress tracker is especially useful for its feedback on how to lower stress throughout the day.

While the Fitbit Sense 2 is one of the best smartwatches, the actual smartwatch experience leaves a little to be desired. Yes, it gets notifications like calls, texts, and app updates, but the fact Fitbit removed third-party app support and Google Assistant access is disappointing. There's also no way to store or play music via the watch.

However, I wouldn't view these as deal-breakers for the Sense 2, especially if you're looking for a smartwatch with premium sleep tracking. It's one of the best Fitbits you can buy, and while it is a so-so smartwatch, it gets the job done when needed while offering a suite of advanced health and wellness features. 

Read our full Fitbit Sense 2 review.

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Best with bezel

Samsung's Galaxy Watch line has offered some of the best Android smartwatches you can buy for years, and the Samsung Watch 6 Classic is no exception.

One of the best additions Samsung introduced on the Watch 6 Classic was to bring back the rotating bezel last seen in the Watch 4. With the rotating bezel, navigating the watch's interface and menus is fluid and easy, especially during workouts or when wearing gloves. This isn't to say the touchscreen is hard to navigate, but sometimes it took a little longer to respond to a screen swipe than it would if I just simply spun the dial.

The watch's improved battery life is also a welcome update. Outside of the Watch 5 Pro, most Galaxy Watches need to find their way to a charger at least once daily to recharge. This wasn't ever a dealbreaker as even our top pick, the Apple Watch Series 9, requires the same daily charging. 

However, having a watch with a battery that lasts more than one day ensures you can squeeze all the functionality out of it. You can use it as a smartwatch and fitness tracker during the day and as a sleep tracker at night. The Watch 6 Classic's longer battery allowed me to do that during my time with it. 

Not all Watch 6 users will make use of every bell and whistle, but even casual wearers will find plenty to utilize. Outside of the available activities and sleep tracking, there's also a stress tracker, a heart rhythm reader (ECG), a body composition analyzer, a temperature sensor, and a cycle tracker.

The highlight of these is the body composition analyzer, which I used to chart my body fat percentage and muscle mass, and the stress tracker, which tracked my specific stress levels at different times throughout the day and suggested ways to lower them. 

I also just really enjoyed wearing the Watch 6 Classic. It has a comfortable, lightweight design that felt equally good to wear while working out and sleeping as it did while sitting at my desk. 

The watch looks good on the wrist, too, featuring a classic round watch face design that looks and feels premium. I could see it being slightly too big for folks with smaller wrists, though it was the perfect size on my arm (and I like larger watch faces). But do keep this in mind if you don't like big watch faces.

My lone nitpick with the Watch 6 Classic is that it's not all that different from the previous generation of Watch 5. It does use the latest Wear OS, though that can also be downloaded on the Watch 5. What this means, though, is that upgrading to the Watch 6 Classic is best done by those wearing the Watch 4 or older — and Watch 5 users can take a beat and wait for the release of next year's Watch 7.

Read our full Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic review.

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What to look for in a smartwatch

It's important to know how you intend to use a smartwatch before you start shopping for one. Maybe you want a wearable with a smaller watch face or prefer a certain strap material. You may even want one that offers robust health and fitness tracking capabilities.

Here's what to consider before purchasing:

Use case: While all smartwatches offer similar functionality of telling time and displaying various call, text, email, and app notifications, some are better suited to certain uses than others. For example, the Fitbit Sense 2 excels as a sleep tracker in addition to being a reliable smartwatch. If you don't need sleep tracking, the Sense 2 may not be a good fit. 

While most smartwatches track activities, they're not all full-fledged fitness trackers. Dedicated fitness trackers provide a variety of trackable activities and often provide in-depth progress-tracking data, monitor rest and recovery, and create workout recommendations. For information on these, check out our guide on the best fitness trackers. 

Sizing: Smartwatches come in a variety of sizing options, both in terms of the actual watch face and the watch strap it comes with. While some folks may benefit from a larger watch face and prefer the amount of data they can see on it, others may find big watches too cumbersome and prefer something smaller and sleeker. This is especially true for those with smaller wrists.

Compatibility: While iPhone users shouldn't buy an Android smartwatch, and vice versa, there are other compatibilities to keep in mind when shopping. For instance, some wearables, like Samsung's Watch 5 Pro and Watch 6 Classic, function better on a Samsung-branded phone than on a different Android device like the Google Pixel. Some features aren't available while the overall experience is slightly different.

Battery life: Battery life is one of the most important considerations when shopping for a smartwatch and directly impacts how you use it. For instance, the Apple Watch Series 9, our pick as the best smartwatch overall, requires daily charging. This is fine for folks who can put it on the charger each night but may not suffice for those who travel frequently or who may not have access to a portable charger.

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How we test smartwatches

Each of the smartwatches included in this guide went through various tests to determine how well they performed across these four categories: Features, fit & comfort, ease of use, and value.

Here's how each category specifically factored into the decision process:

Features: This is one of the most important considerations for any smartwatch and separates something like the Apple Watch Series 8 from something that didn't make our guide, like the Fitbit Versa 4. A wearable with features like third-party app support, the ability to play or store music, and others like sleep tracking or an always-on display truly fits the bill of being a quality smartwatch. 

Fit & comfort: If a smartwatch is uncomfortable, you'll be far less likely to want to wear it very often. And since a smartwatch is supposed to be a suitable extension of your phone, track your daily activity, and monitor your sleep, you need to wear it a lot. We took into consideration how the watch band feels, how lightweight it is while wearing at night, and whether it stays comfortable while commuting, working out, etc. 

Ease of use: Learning curve is another important factor since knowing how to get the most out of your smartwatch without fumbling through menus is vital to the experience. There will be a learning period with any new smartwatch but the ones that are intuitive and easy to navigate from the jump are the ones that stick out. The Apple Watch Series 9 is one of the easiest watches to navigate, which is part of why it's our top overall pick. 

Value: Value can often be subjective and is influenced entirely by how a user utilizes a certain smartwatch. For instance, not everyone needs the Apple Watch Ultra 2. Athletes or those who spend a lot of time outside who also need a powerful smartwatch will get a lot of value out of it while someone who is just casually active may not need all the bells and whistles. But value is still an important aspect we considered because smartwatches aren't cheap and you want to ensure that your investment is a wise one.

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FAQs

What is the best smartwatch?

This largely hinges on two things: how you intend to use the smartwatch and, perhaps most importantly, what smartphone you have. For instance, the best Apple Watches only work on iOS devices, while the best Android smartwatches only work on Android devices.

So, while we think the Apple Watch Series 9 is the best overall smartwatch, regardless of smartphone operating system, it's still only usable by one group of users: those with an iOS device.

Consider how you intend to use the smartwatch, too. If you want something that accurately tracks activities and has several health-tracking tools, a pure smartwatch likely isn't going to be the "best" for you. Similarly, if you want the best pure smartwatch experience, a dedicated fitness tracker won't be the best fit.

Do all smartwatches work on any smartphone? 

No. Some smartwatches work exclusively on a certain operating system. For instance, the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 only work on iOS devices, while wearables such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro and Google Pixel Watch 2 only work on Android devices. 

However, many wearables work on iOS and Android, including the Garmin Epix, the Fitbit Sense 2, and the Fitbit Versa 3. Always cross-reference which operating system a certain smartwatch requires with the operating system of your smartphone before purchasing. 

Can you use an Apple Watch with an Android smartphone? 

No, the Apple Watch is only compatible with devices running iOS. While you can still wear an Apple Watch if you own an Android phone, you won't be able to get anywhere near the full functionality out of it like accessing any tracked data or downloading apps. 

Unlike smartwatches from Garmin and Fitbit, which work with iOS and Android devices, the Apple Watch only works with iOS devices.

Can you use an Android smartwatch with an iPhone?

No, Android smartwatches, such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, Watch 5 Pro, and Google's Pixel Watches, are only compatible with devices running the Android operating system. Those with iOS devices should avoid purchasing these watches to ensure their smartwatch's full functionality.

If you want a device-agnostic smartwatch, opt for the Garmin Epix Pro or Fitbit Sense 2.

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• During WWII, scientists experimented on themselves to help divers and submarine crews.
• The scientists conducted over 600 experiments on themselves, breathing CO2, oxygen, and more gases.
• The British Admiralty used their data for recon missions, including before D-Day.

On January 18, 1944, a miniature sub known as an X-craft made its way from the English Channel to French waters undetected. For four nights, the sub surfaced every 12 hours to let in fresh air.

The submariners were on a reconnaissance mission. Two British Army officers aboard the sub swam to shore to mark landmarks and recently dug mines, gathering intel for troops who would invade the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, five months later.

The small group of scientists aboard the sub performed hundreds of experiments on themselves to figure out how long the X-craft could stay submerged with the occupants breathing their own expelled carbon dioxide.

They locked themselves in hyperbaric chambers, where they breathed carbon dioxide, pure oxygen, and other gases to figure out how best to breathe underwater.

These scientists meticulously documented the dangers of inhaling regular air and pure oxygen at different depths — helping pave the way for modern divers, who often use different gas mixtures depending on how deep they are going.

In her new book, "Chamber Divers: The Untold Story of the D-Day Scientists Who Changed Special Operations Forever," Rachel Lance tells the story of the many injuries and near-death experiences the researchers endured, from a broken spine to a collapsed lung.

The British Admiralty, which was in charge of the Royal Navy, used the scientists' data to help troops pilot miniature submarines, dismantle underwater obstacles, and perform other reconnaissance missions. All these tasks were vital for the D-Day mission.

The many dangers of diving

By the 1940s, diving was common but required bulky suits and large helmets. Anyone going underwater for lengthy periods needed a cable to attach them to a boat and provide a constant supply of air.

Experts had already known about the dangers of decompression sickness, also known as the bends, for decades. When a diver surfaces too quickly after a deep dive, the change in pressure can cause nitrogen bubbles to flood the bloodstream. A buildup of bubbles blocks blood flow and, in the most serious cases, can lead to death.

But that wasn't the British Admiralty's only concern with underwater travel. In 1939, the Thetis submarine sank during a dive test. While four people escaped, the other 99 trapped aboard died of then-unknown causes. Having breathing apparatuses on board wasn't enough to save them.

An engineer investigating the disaster asked John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, who worked in the genetics department at University College London, for help figuring out what happened. Haldane had participated in his physiologist father's experiments on decompression sickness and breathing various gases in their at-home lab since he was a child.

Haldane and a handful of members from his lab, quickly got to work conducting experiments in hyperbaric chambers. They were the guinea pigs.

Pure oxygen could be poisonous

Haldane and his fellow scientists breathed different levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen to see how their bodies responded at different levels of pressure. CO2 would give them headaches, make them tired, and cause them to hyperventilate.

It was excessive CO2 that had killed those aboard the Thetis, Haldane figured out, and future crews would need a way to absorb the gas.

Pure oxygen could be just as poisonous. It caused violent seizures, vomiting, and impaired vision. The researchers would see flashes of color they called "dazzle." Haldane injured his back during a seizure, and another researcher dislocated her jaw.

The seizures were bad enough in a dry hyperbaric chamber, but one of the researchers nearly drowned breathing oxygen while submerged in water.

Breathing regular air — which is mostly nitrogen — at increased pressure caused a phenomenon known as nitrogen narcosis during the researchers' tests.

It was potent enough that "no great trust should be placed in human intelligence under these circumstances," Haldane and Martin Case, another researcher, wrote. While the phenomenon wasn't new, the fact that the scientists struggled to do math problems while under its effect showed that it could be deadly for divers trying to complete simple tasks.

Finally, the researchers started mixing oxygen and air to find an ideal composition that would allow divers and submarine crews to breathe without side effects like seizures or vision loss.

Haldane and the other members of his lab conducted over 600 experiments on themselves in total. The British Admiralty used their data when outfitting its X-craft submarines and handing out custom mixes of oxygen and air based on the depth of their dives.

The documents chronicling the work of Haldane and his fellow scientists were declassified in 2001, well after many of them had died. Their dangerous experiments not only contributed to the D-Day invasion, but also contributed to the science behind modern-day scuba diving.

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• Commercial foreclosures jumped 117% year-to-date in March, data from ATTOM shows.
• It reflects difficulty for the real-estate market, which has been hurt by high interest rates. 
• Offices have led the drawdown, with sector delinquency rates still rising in the first quarter.

The commercial real estate market is still struggling, made all the more clear by the rapid upswing in property foreclosures. 

Foreclosure activity jumped by 117% year-over-year in March, real estate data provider ATTOM reported on Wednesday. That indicates 625 foreclosures, a stark contrast to the pandemic lows, where foreclosures bottomed at 141 in May 2020.

As COVID-era aid and foreclosure moratoriums helped keep levels low in recent years, the current surge could in part reflect some normalization, as has been happening in residential real-estate. While high, commercial foreclosures are still under a 2014 peak of 889.

The rising trend partly stems from higher interest rates, which have battered the sector's ability to service debts and raised concerns about defaults rippling through the market. 

With billions in commercial debt maturing, tighter monetary policy has forced borrowers to either refinance at higher rates or sell their properties at steep discounts. For those that extend their maturities, analysts worry it's just delaying a wave of distress, with $2.2 trillion in debt coming due by 2027.

Bearing the brunt of these issues is the office sector, which is also burdened by falling demand amid entrenched remote work.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, offices were the only commercial segment where delinquencies kept rising in the first quarter, with rates unchanged for all other sectors. 6.8% of office loan balances were 30 or more days late, an increase from last quarter's 6.5%. 

"Loans across property types are adjusting to higher interest rates and uncertainty about property values, but the continued fog around the impact of hybrid work adds another challenge for office properties and their loans," Head of Commercial Real Estate Research Jamie Woodwell said in the report.

Earlier this month, Fitch Ratings warned of a rising global contagion risk from commercial real-estate losses. Through 2024, its estimates that three-fourths of US conduit office loans will default.

"Lower-quality and older vintage office properties should see the greatest risk from this reduced demand, and are likely to face outsized property value declines and even obsolescence," it said. "This is already evident in some high-profile U.S. office markets and, increasingly, in gateway European cities with rising vacancies."

The ratings agency previously forecast the office price crash to be worse than 2008's financial crisis.

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• Meta released the first two versions of its Llama 3 large language model on Thursday.
• The technology powers Meta AI, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls "the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use."
• Meta says the new models have improved reasoning and code generation, as well as more diverse responses.

Meta's large language model and AI assistant are getting upgrades.

On Thursday, the company released the first models of Llama 3 in two sizes, 8B and 70B parameters. They've also been integrated into Meta AI, the company's AI assistant.

"With this new model, we believe Meta AI is now the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday in an Instagram post.

Meta said in a blog post Thursday its newest models saw "substantially reduced false refusal rates, improved alignment, and increased diversity in model responses," as well as progress in reasoning, generating code, and instruction.

"With Llama 3, we set out to build the best open models that are on par with the best proprietary models available today," the post reads. "This next generation of Llama demonstrates state-of-the-art performance on a wide range of industry benchmarks and offers new capabilities, including improved reasoning. We believe these are the best open source models of their class, period."

Though Meta bills Llama as open-source, Llama 2 required companies with more than 700 million monthly active users to request a license from the company to use it, which Meta may or may not grant.

In the near future, Meta hopes to "make Llama 3 multilingual and multimodal, have longer context, and continue to improve overall performance across core LLM capabilities such as reasoning and coding," the company said in the blog post.

So what do the changes mean for Meta AI now?

The AI assistant can help with tasks like recommending restaurants, planning trips, and making your emails sound more professional.

Using Meta AI's Imagine feature also now produces sharper images faster: They'll start to appear as you're typing and change "with every few letters typed," according to a press release issued Thursday.

Meta AI is available across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and on browsers. The company says multimodal Meta AI is also coming to its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses soon. It's rolling out in English in over a dozen countries outside the US.

As for what comes next, Meta says it's working on models over 400B parameters that are still in training.

"I don't think that today many people really think about Meta AI when they think about the main AI assistants that people use," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told The Verge in an article published Thursday. "But I think that this is the moment where we're really going to start introducing it to a lot of people, and I expect it to be quite a major product."

Meta AI, of course, faces stiff competition from better-known AI assistants, including the likes of OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot, and Anthropic's Claude.

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• Samsung Group is introducing a six-day workweek for executives, according to a recent report.
• The emergency measure comes in response to various economic headwinds and underwhelming results in 2023.
• One bright spot? Samsung recently reclaimed the top spot in global smartphone shipments from Apple.

While some companies are embracing four-day workweeks, Samsung Group is reportedly moving in the opposite direction — at least for executives.

Samsung Group is implementing a six-day workweek for executives across all of its divisions, with some starting as early as this week, according to a new report from The Korea Economic Daily.

The abrupt move by the South Korean business giant comes as the company weathers business headwinds, including rising oil prices, high borrowing costs, and the sharp depreciation of the South Korean won, according to the report.

The report described the company's situation as "emergency mode."

"Considering that performance of our major units, including Samsung Electronics Co., fell short of expectations in 2023, we are introducing the six-day work week for executives to inject a sense of crisis and make all-out efforts to overcome this crisis," a Samsung Group executive told the Daily.

Samsung did not immediately return a request for comment before publication sent outside of local business hours.

The new schedule is effective immediately at most of Samsung's technology divisions, with its financial services arms of the business expected to follow in the near future, according to the report. Some executives at other divisions have already been working six-day weeks voluntarily since the start of the year, the Daily said.

Samsung Electronics executives will have the option of coming in either Saturday or Sunday, according to the report. Employees under the executive level will continue to work for five days a week.

While the company looks to rebound from 2023's results, there has been a recent bright spot. IDC reported that Samsung reclaimed the top spot for global smartphone shipments in the first quarter — a title it briefly lost to Apple in the last quarter of 2023.

Samsung has not yet released its first-quarter earnings results for 2024, which it will on April 30. In its most recent earnings results, the company said it was cautiously optimistic of a rebound in smartphone demand in 2024. The company is expected to benefit from rising semiconductor prices, Reuters recently reported.

South Korea is known for its intense work culture; the average worker spent 1,901 hours at their job in 2022, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ranking fifth-highest among the economic organization's 38 member states. Last year, the country pushed a plan for a 69-hour workweek, which was only abandoned after opposition from young workers and labor unions.

SK Group, a South Korean conglomerate that owns Samsung competitor SK Hynix, said earlier this year it would reintroduce regular Saturday meetings for its chief executives.

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• I used to shop on Amazon a lot, but being impatient has saved me money.
• If my Amazon order doesn't say it can be shipped in 24 hours, I won't buy it anymore.
• By waiting, I limit my purchases and I usually realize I didn't need the item anyway. 

I've spent a lot of money and time on Amazon Prime.

Thanks to Instagram posts and TikTok videos, I'm constantly feeling influenced to buy — or at least consider buying — products from Amazon.

And I know it's not just me — Amazon is the second biggest retailer in the world, and three out of four Americans use Amazon Prime.

I usually add random things I don't really need, like overpriced throw pillows, butterfly-patterned cowboy boots, or a teeny-tiny Mandalorian Lego set to my cart.

But after contemplating the price and reading reviews, the top thing that keeps me from making a spontaneous purchase is actually how long it'll take to ship.

Only buying things that ship in 24 hours helps cut down my buyer's remorse

Since speed of delivery is one of the biggest factors consumers consider when placing an order, I decided to take it really seriously and make it my main one.

If Prime says an item will take more than 24 hours to ship, I don't buy it. After all, if it's not in my hands in a day, I'll probably forget I even wanted it … which means I definitely didn't need it in the first place.

My rule of thumb is if I can forget about the item in the time it takes to ship, it's not worth it. I like that this strategy lets me shop and get some instant gratification while also setting limits that help me cut down on unnecessary purchases I'll regret later.

This also stops me from filling up my cart every time I make a purchase

When I place an Amazon order, I often feel compelled to fill my cart, going from one unnecessary item to two or three.

Maybe it's a "Might as well!" attitude, or perhaps my moral compass feels a little less bad about the environmental impact of my purchase if more than one item ships in the same package.

But, again, with my new rule, if nothing in my cart will ship within one day, it all gets taken out. This cuts many of my unnecessary purchases because most things I consider buying have standard Prime two-day shipping.

I'm now more comfortable just ordering one thing if it's the only item I wanted that'll ship to me within 24 hours.

So if you also find yourself overspending on Amazon and stuffing your cart, setting some kind of boundary around your purchases — even if it's a small one like mine — could be a good place to start.

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• The creator economy is catching notable VCs' attention — and their wallets.
• Creator-focused startups are raising millions of dollars.
• Here are the pitch decks that 33 startups used in Series A, seed, and pre-seed rounds.

The creator economy has bred a new generation of startups — from influencer-marketing companies to new social-media experiences.

These startups have captured the attention and wallets of influential venture capitalists and angel investors over the last several years, giving rise to several unicorn valuations in the space, such as the link-in-bio service Linktree (valued at $1.3 billion in 2022) and the affiliate-marketing platform LTK (valued at $2 billion in late 2021).

Check out 14 VCs who are investing in innovative startups focused on the creator economy and influencers

Even as the economy has weathered changing tides and investments have cooled across industries, some startups in this sector are still raising money.

Several startups announced seven-figure seed rounds in 2023, including the Web3-inspired social network Seam Social's $2.5 million round in December. Last year also saw several later-stage funding rounds, such as one from Whop, an e-commerce marketplace for digital goods, which announced its $17 million Series A in July. Karat, a financial startup for creators, raised a $70 million Series B in June — though it proves that a big VC round doesn't ensure stability, as the company later conducted layoffs in October.

Here are 16 creator-economy startups that raised the most money in 2023.

So, how do creator-economy startups land those investments? Often, it starts with a pitch deck. 

Lumanu, a creator-focused financial startup, uses a simple pitch deck that's more of a "conversation guider," its cofounder and CEO, Tony Tran, told BI.

"My pitch is always why, what, how, and why now?" Tran said. (Read the full pitch deck here.)

Skye, a career-coaching startup, had different pitch decks depending on the type of investor or fund they pitched to.

"I had two different versions, depending on the fund," Jessica Wolf, Skye's CEO and one of its cofounders, said. "If I knew a fund was more into pre-seed, all about the founder, I had one deck. But if I knew that they were a numbers person, I would use another one."

Every startup has a different approach.

Some, such as Throne, even ditch the pitch deck altogether and opt for an email or Notion document.

Read the email template creator-economy startup Throne used to secure its seed investment.

BI talked with founders who've pitched their startups to investors about their process. They broke down the pitch decks they used to secure millions of dollars in funding.

Read the pitch decks that helped 33 creator-focused startups fundraise millions of dollars:

Note: Pitch decks are sorted by investment stage and size of round.

Series A

• Restream, a livestreaming alternative to platforms like the Amazon-owned Twitch: $50 million Series A (14 pages)
• Pearpop, a creator-marketing platform: $18 million Series A (18 pages)
• Spoon Radio, a social-audio startup: $17 million Series A (15 pages)
• Kyra, a content studio, talent-management firm, and influencer-marketing platform: $15 million Series A (20 pages)
• Allstar, a startup helping gamers become social-media creators: $12 million Series A (6 pages)
• Lumanu, a business-solutions platform for creators: $12 million Series A (8 pages)
• Hype, a platform for link-in-bio and other creator-monetization tools: $10 million Series A (13 pages)
• Catch+Release, a startup that helps creators and everyday social-media users license their content to brands: $8.8 million Series A (12 pages)
• Slip.stream, a music startup focused on gamers: $7.5 million Series A (13 pages)
• Brag House, an esports startup: $5 million Series A (24 pages)

Seed

• Scenario, a generative-AI startup to create gaming art and assets: $6 million seed (8 pages)
• Authoritive, an online course-development startup: $5 million seed (11 pages)
• Dharma, a travel startup for creators and brands: $4.7 million pre-Series A (17 pages)
• Glystn, an AI-powered community-management platform: $4 million seed (15 pages)
• Anima, an augmented-reality startup: $3 million (15 pages)
• Grandstand, a sports startup working with athlete creators: $2.75 million
• Seam Social, a new Web3 social-media platform: $2.5 million (10 pages)
• Spark, a digital-art platform from the YouTuber Moriah Elizabeth: $2.5 million seed (9 pages)
• Insense, a startup helping e-commerce brands get low-cost ads: $2.5 million pre-Series A (9 pages)
• Supercast, a podcast subscriptions startup: $2 million seed (20 pages)
• Chartmetric, a music-data and -measurement company: $2 million seed (46 pages)
• Ultimate Playlist, a music-marketing startup: $2 million round (9 pages)
• Magroove, a music-distribution and -discovery platform: $1.6 million seed (21 pages)
• Stagetime, a professional-networking startup for performing artists: $1.5 million seed (13 pages)
• Jubilee Media, a content studio looking to expand beyond YouTube and TikTok: $1.1 million seed-plus (12 pages)

Pre-Seed

• Storia, a startup for animators and writers: $2.5 million pre-seed (16 pages)
• July, a "talent manager in your pocket" for creators: $2.3 million pre-seed (9 pages)
• Squads, a startup that helps creators mint and sell crypto coins: $1.8 million pre-seed (12 pages)
• Skye, a career-coaching platform: $1.6 million pre-seed (33 pages)
• Punchup Live, a comedy platform: $1 million pre-seed (19 pages)
• Spore, a content and community-building startup: $1 million pre-seed (17 pages)
• Hashtag Pay Me, a startup that helps creators price brand deals: $200,000 pre-seed (9 pages)
• Our Future, a short-form video-news brand that targets Gen Z: acquired (15 pages)

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• TSMC sees growth in the microchip industry slowing to 10%, it said in a post-earnings call.
• The dimmed outlook comes on slowdown expectations for automotive chips.
• But the firm still projects strong AI-led revenue growth in the second-quarter.

Microchips aren't making the inventory comeback industry optimists have hoped for, compelling the world's top chip producer to dim its outlook.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing now expects the market to expand 10%, excluding memory chips. That's down from the "more than 10%" forecast it laid out months prior.

The update was offered during the firm's post-earnings call with analysts, and is premised on TSMC's shifting stance on automotive chips, used in vehicles. Though it previously expected demand in this sector to rise through the year, it now sees a contraction as more likely. Further explanation was not provided.

"Looking at 2024, macro economy and geopolitical uncertainties persist, which could further affect consumer confidence and end-market demand," CEO C.C. Wei said on the analyst call.

That's not to say the firm has turned gloomy about its own prospects, instead forecasting its second-quarter sales to rise by as much as 30%. 

"Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the insatiable AI-related demand for energy efficient computing power," Wei said, also citing high demand for AI-led data centers.

The bell-weather firm is central to AI's development, as it's the principal manufacturing hub for tech leaders like Nvidia and Apple. In fact, AI-related chips will account for a tenth of revenue this year, before taking up a fifth of this figure in the coming four years.

While TSMC beat both revenue and profit expectations in the first quarter, ADRs on its stock fell as much as 6% on Thursday, amid the dampened industry outlook.

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• 23andMe cofounder and CEO Anne Wojcicki wants to take the once-hot DNA company private.
• 23andMe said a Special Committee would evaluate the proposal in light of other options.
• The company's valuation has tumbled since its stock market debut in 2021.

23andMe — the struggling DNA company once valued in the billions — was essentially worthless as of Wednesday.

But in a filing late Wednesday, Anne Wojcicki revealed she wants to buy back the company she cofounded in 2006 and take it private.

On Saturday, Wojcicki notified board members of her plans to acquire all outstanding shares in the company, indicating that "she was working with advisors and plans to begin speaking to potential partners and financing sources," according to an SEC filing.

The filing states Wojcicki wants to retain control of the company and "will not be willing to support any alternative transaction."

23andMe confirmed it was aware of Wojcicki's plans in a press release Thursday. It said its board formed a Special Committee on March 28 and would review Wojcicki's proposal "when and if it is made available and evaluate it in light of other available strategic alternatives, including continuing to operate as a publicly traded company."

23andMe debuted on the stock market in 2021 but has taken an epic fall from its peak valuation of $6 billion, with financial and strategic missteps, as well as high-profile hacks of user data, dragging the company down.

Wojcicki has attempted to reverse course by announcing layoffs, selling subsidiaries, pivoting to subscriptions, and offering various healthcare services. It hasn't worked.

Shares shot up to trade at roughly 50 cents on Thursday after Wojcicki's filing. But the stock had been trading at just 36 cents on Wednesday, a new low.

The Nasdaq had previously threatened to delist the company if it kept trading for lower than $1.

Before Wednesday's filing, the company's enterprise value was negative since its shares were valued at less than the cash the company reported having on hand.

A 23andMe spokesperson told Business Insider that the Special Committee declined to comment. A rep for Wojcicki did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

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• Google fired 28 employees involved in protests against a $1.2 billion cloud contract with Israel.
• The company warned employees that disruptive behavior won't be tolerated.
• An employee was fired in March for interrupting an interview with a Google Israel executive to protest the contract.

Google issued a warning to any employees considering participating in any future sit-in protests within the company's offices: "Think again."

Google fired 28 employees on Wednesday following in-office protests against the company's $1.2 billion contract with Israel.

The company sent an internal memo Wednesday evening, reviewed by Business Insider, explaining its course of action and telling employees to rethink violating its policies when demonstrating.

"If you're one of the few who are tempted to think we're going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again," Google said in the memo. "The company takes this extremely seriously."

The protests against Google's Project Nimbus contract, which supplies cloud computing services to Israel's government and military, took place outside Google offices in New York City, Sunnyvale, and Seattle, as well as inside the NYC and Sunnyvale locations, when a number of employees staged a sit-in.

Google placed the employees involved in the in-office protests under investigation and revoked their access to its systems. From that group, five were arrested in Sunnyvale and accused of trespassing, and four were arrested and charged with criminal trespassing in New York City.

Google said in the memo the behavior violated multiple policies, including its code of conduct and policy on harassment, discrimination, retaliation, standards of conduct, and workplace concerns.

"They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers," Google said in the internal memo. "Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened."

According to one of the arrested employees in New York City, 23-year-old Hasan Ibraheem, the protest started around noon on Tuesday. The group of employees sat in the office and gave chants and speeches every 15 to 20 minutes until about 6 p.m.

The group was asked to leave multiple times, but Ibraheem said at the time, he viewed the requests as "empty threats." After losing access to the company's systems and refusing to leave, the police arrested the remaining group at 9:30 p.m.

Google said it will continue to investigate and take action as needed.

"Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it," Google said in the memo.

Google added that it will continue to use its policies to take action against disruptive behavior, which may include termination. The company also said employees should expect to hear more from leaders about standards of behavior and discourse in the workplace.

Google employees have generated headlines in the past for organizing protests, ranging from walkouts protesting sexual misconduct at the company to petitions urging Google CEO Sundar Pichai to stop providing AI tech to US military drones.

Most recently, Google fired one employee for disrupting a presentation in New York by the company's head of Google Israel.

Read the full memo below:

Googlers,

You may have seen reports of protests at some of our offices yesterday. Unfortunately, a number of employees brought the event into our buildings in New York and Sunnyvale. They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened. We placed employees involved under investigation and cut their access to our systems. Those who refused to leave were arrested by law enforcement and removed from our offices. 

Following investigation, today we terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and take action as needed.

Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it. It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to – including our Code of Conduct and Policy on Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct, and Workplace Concerns.

We are a place of business and every Googler is expected to read our policies and apply them to how they conduct themselves and communicate in our workplace. The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. If you're one of the few who are tempted to think we're going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again. The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behavior – up to and including termination. 

You should expect to hear more from leaders about standards of behavior and discourse in the workplace.

Chris

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